The Coming of Steam and Steel : 301 



ture of the ship. She really used her steam engine though often the 

 crew would have given up had they not been driven by Captain Rob- 

 erts, R.N., at the point of a pistol. 



In 1840, despite a few apparently successful crossings of the ocean, 

 steamers were far from being either mechanically efficient or eco- 

 nomically profitable. The capital cost of building a sailing vessel, reck- 

 oned in British pounds, was about twenty to twenty-five per ton. The 

 cost of building a steam vessel was twice that, and this only repre- 

 sented the initial outlay. Owing to the large coal consumption the 

 cost of operating a steamer mile for mile and ton for ton was much 

 greater; so great in fact that no steamer then or for some time there- 

 after could be reckoned as other than an unprofitable venture. 



This was fully realized by Samuel Cunard, a Canadian-born busi- 

 nessman who succeeded in getting a contract to carry mail in steam- 

 ers and also a subsidy from the British government. This permitted 

 him, in the year 1840, to build the vessel Britannia, the first Cunarder, 

 which succeeded in crossing the ocean in fourteen days and eight 

 hours, and thereafter operated between England, Canada and the 

 port of Boston. Britannia was rated as having a carrying capacity of 

 865 tons whereas her coal requirement for a passage was 640 tons. 

 After the great race between the Sirius and the Great Western in 1838, 

 ten years went by during which vessels with steam power came to 

 New York occasionally and irregularly. Then in 1848 Samuel 

 Cunard, again operating with a British subsidy, built two steamers, 

 the Hibernia and the Cambria, and commenced regular operation of 

 his line between New York and Liverpool. These vessels were not 

 large and they were not record breakers. Cunard's whole emphasis 

 was on regularity and safety. 



These qualities were badly needed for the next generation was 

 marked by new developments and ceaseless experimentation, and 

 the experiments were often accompanied by lack of financial success 

 and not infrequently by disaster. These experimental failures in steam 

 and metal construction provided an incentive for the continuous 

 development and success of the sailing ships. One of the troubles and 

 causes of inefficiency in the steam engine was the low steam pressure 

 in the early boilers and cylinders. We have seen already that John Ste- 

 vens succeeded in completing in America one engine that carried a 

 boiler pressure of as much as fifty pounds per square inch. This was 

 twice as high as any of his competitors were able to achieve, but nei- 

 ther the materials that were available nor the skills of the mechanics 

 were capable of continuing at this level. There was also the problem 



